Whats on in London, november 78, page 10

CONCERTS Patrik Fitzgerald at the Poly

This would have been a very enjoyable gig, but for the contemptible behaviour of a large part of the audience who just wanted to see the famous pop stars and .... off home. I, for one, was pleasantly surprised to find Fitzgerald billed as one of the support acts for the Jam, because I'd been wanting to see him ever since hearing the Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart e.p., and getting to Victoria Park just too late. Unfortunately, his act wasn't suitable for the occasion this evening, because all the audience wanted was Jam. Patrik had to compete with a continual hibbub in the hall and a constant barrage of insults from jerks and mindless nurds who were not prepared to give this unique performer a chance. He got more and more fed up with the whole thing, his songs getting more and more pointed. Alle my friends are Dead Now, and They're buying their punk down at Woolworth's in particular. Most of the material he presented was new, though he did "Backstreet Boys" and "Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart" in a last ditch attempt to appeal to the audience. But they didn't listen any better, because they were so thick. If I'd been in his place I'd have been inclined to walk off earlier, they just (what am I saying "they" for, because you were there) you just didn't deserve it, but like the song goes, "They want you to turn, they want you to run." Fitzgerald's music is immediate, realist stuff, real street music, to use a particulary worn cliche, but what followed wasn't.

The Dickies are, or rather were. They are two years out of date, the result of punk finally leaking back to the West Coast, and now they come back with it locked in transatlantic lag. They do everything at maximum volume, very fast indeed, and I suppose that with numbers like Sound of Silence (yes, as in S. & G. of wimp fame) and Paranoid (when I first heard their version of it I actually thought Lord Longford was playing Black Sabbath at 78 r.p.m.) It is quite a novel experience, but when the stuff proceeds at the same speed and volume for another twenty minutes it gets very boring.

They were only on for about twenty five minutes. Other remarkable moments were the lead singer using the keyboardist's head to hit the ivories and the vocalist seemed to revel in the rain of gob from the audience, no doubt in the naive assumption that they thought him good. They couldn't talk over the band, so they did the next best thing, Verdict? A bunch of poseurs, who if the continue as they are will go deaf, blind, grey, vote conservative and so will the people who listen to them.

Then came the Jam. They were Good. Everybody liked them. Mary Whitehouse didn't play guitar either.